Why don’t they have a worthwhile literature while Latin-America produced so many greats? What was lost when those Europeans settled the North American continent that wasn’t lost while they settled South America? Is it because the main cultural influence was British, the weakest of the main European literary traditions? Why was it not corrected after countless Germans, Italians, Irish etc. emigrated? They have Melville and arguably Poe, Faulkner and Dickinson, that seems like a weak harvest for 250 years of existence. And why are they so obsessed with this concept of the “Great American Novel”? Is it because they can only approach arts and culture through the lens of sports?
You really have nothing better to do but make bait threads?
Here's all that's worth preserving from American literature:-Novels:Moby-DickThe Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors, Wings of Dove, Portrait of a LadyThe Sound and the furySuttree, Blood meridian, Border trilogy, The Passenger & Stella MarisShort stories:Complete works of Garielle lutzThe turn of the screwNovellas:The Pedersen kidOld man and the seaPoems:Complete works of Emily DickinsonComplete works of EE cummingsJohn Ashbery: only the collections from 20th centuryThe rest are different shades of shit and can burn in a fire.
>>25087377You really have nothing better to do but state the obvious when you know everyone is going to ignore both you and the obvious?
>>25087390What makes The Pedersen Kid the one bit of Gass worth saving?
>>25087393It's arguably the best novella written by an American. Gass is not a good writer of fiction but a great stylist, and for this one story everything came together.
>>25087395>platitudesNever fails.
>>25087390>no Pierre/Confidence-Man>no Bartleby/Billy Budd>no Absalom, Absalom!>no Whitman>no Gaddis>no Pynchon>EE Cummings
>>25087401I am not sure if you're worth more
>>25087410>limp dismissalJust admit to being a retard.
>>25087408Overrated because Melville wrote themOverrated because Melville wrote themOverrated because Faulkner wrote it.TSATF is the finale of American modernism.Overrated jingoistHas an argument but TR has first-book syndrome and JR is not quite as important as TRShitIs one of the best
>>25087412Idk what you're baiting for but there is no compulsion for me to write an essay on why I included a very well written novella. You asked me why, I told you the gist of it.
>>25087417Not baiting, just asked a question that does not require an essay to answer and should not be difficult to answer with more than platitudes if you are not a retard.
>>25087426Holy shit you're genuinely retarded
>>25087427>no you, but stated in the most retarded fashion because retardI will put it into retard terms for you. Gass wrote a good number of novellas, what makes The Pedersen Kid better than all the rest?
>>25087376
>>25087429>>25087427
>>25087437So, you started and ended reading Gass with In The Heart a of the Heart of the Country and The Pedersen Kid was the only story in it you could pretend to understand and the only story you made it more than 3 pages into, got it.
>>25087519>>25087427
>>25087519No the rest of them were shit but you're too dumb to understand that
>>25087376I used to be highly "patriotic" with unflinching loyalty to America. But over time the more I studied history the more it seemed like the country since at least the mid to late 1800's has been little more than a corporate playground. It seems like the industrialists have been the ones funding and ultimately determining or approving of cultural trends; the fine-print of your favorite American rocker or writer's biography will always reveal some suspect characters close to their immediate circle. And while patronism isn't exclusive to the United States, from what I understand older countries at least had ebbs and flows in their political climates wherein the patrons weren't of one mind at all times, but the younger America seems to have a uniquely corporate spine. So American writers produce within artificial cultures, are inundated and polluted by them, and must be approved by them. The obstacles to true artistry in such a situation are formidable.
>>25087390>Complete works of Garielle lutzKill yourself, you unread tranny
>Why don’t they have a worthwhile literature while Latin-America produced so many greats?>Is it because the main cultural influence was British, the weakest of the main European literary traditions?
>>25087595meant to be maradona, greatest footballer to ever live (second only to messi, another argentinian)?
>>25087376>Latin-America produced so many greats?What are you talking about? the only 2 good spanish language books ever written are Don Quixote and Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
>>25087376bump
